Which Sets shall I apply to?

One of the toughest aspects of applying for pupillage is deciding which 12 Sets you're actually going to be applying to, out of the myriad available.

To assist me in the decision, a couple of months ago I created a giant spreadsheet of every criminal, or part-criminal, Set in Greater London and recorded the break down of their work, which circuits they operate on, whether they use OLPAS or not, what their deadline for applications is, their website, their award, what year they're offering pupillage, their ranking in Legal 500 and C&P and other bits and pieces of useful information.

When the spreadsheet was finished I found I had over 80 Sets to sort through.

Firstly, I removed Set 3.

My second step was to remove every Set which seemed to have less than 50% crime, or (if figures weren't available) seemed to promote their civil work above their criminal work.

This removed more than half of the Sets.

Next, I removed all the Sets I had promised I would not apply to - basically the Sets where my Brain Trust were on the pupillage committee.

Next, I removed any Set which, in its criminal work, only defends or only prosecutes - 4 more Sets gone.

I was left with about 20 Sets. I removed Sets where I had absolutely no hope due to personal factors (I am not am marxist, so it would be pointless to apply to Tooks).

And I was left with 16 Sets.

These 16:


187 Fleet St
2 Bedford Row
2 Harcourt (Atkinson Bevan)
2 Hare Court
23 Essex Street
3 Temple Gardens
4 Breams Buildings
5 Paper Buildings
5 St Andrew's Hill
6 KBW
9-12 Bell Yard
Argent
Charter
Furnival
QEB Hollis Whiteman
Three Raymond Buildings

I'm writing applications to all 16, and am leaving the decision of which 4 to cut to another day.